The Year in Sand 2007

I'd been debating a sculpture. Either Saturday or Sunday would work. Saturday had a short deadline; I had to be home by around 1630 to start something else, which would preclude sunset photos. I'd pretty much decided to let Saturday go when Nate called.



He was home looking for something to do, Debbie having been called to something else. I assembled a minimal kit and set out by skateboard. Camera, water, some carving tools, and some cookies. Everyone knows that sculpture requires cookies. Rich taught me that. The day was warm and calm and there were lots of people headed west.



We'd had some storms. No real rain but still had the wind and big surf. I expected the sand to be barely workable. I skated through the crowds and got a nice surprise. Although there were shells and rocks mixed in, the sand itself was quite good.



I had no good idea of what to make. Warm days bring the people out and several stopped to ask what I was doing; I told them to come back in a couple of hours. I was nearly done with the pile when Nate arrived. He went to work, made a pile that fell apart, started again. By that time I was working with my own pile, taller and more slender than I'm used to.



Well, the key is not to give up. Remember the earlier mistakes and try something else. Just because it's tall and slender doesn't mean it has to look like every other tall, slender sculpture.



I wanted delicacy but had to sneak up on it. Otherwise I'd hit big rocks and shells. Cutting them out gently took care of some of the problems, but still made the design decisions a challenge. Take this out? Make it thinner? What if there's a rock in there? Sometimes I won, other times I lost. Sculpture is a compromise, especially free-piled.



I forgot to bring a brush so the clean-up was done with fingertips and small tools to scoop out the crumbs. If you sort of don't look at the shells you can see where the sculpture was supposed to go. It's an odd mix of new and old, some of the ideas being echoes of 1996 when I first started trying to do sculpture within the outer structure.





High clouds had gradually thickened as the sun moved west. Shirtless Nate was getting cold in the slow sea breeze.
"Where'd the clouds come from?"
"I heard about possible rain. Those clouds could be the precursor."
"Rain tonight?"
"No. Late tomorrow, maybe, or Monday."





Nate called his finished. A good idea as there was very little sand left to carve. While sitting and relaxing he quickly formed a face from loose sand. His fingers are rarely still.



He left, needing to take their dog for a walk before there was an accident. I took some pictures and then walked north along the beach. The clouds gradually got thicker. Early Monday morning the rain showed up.